The Scarab Murder Case

by S. S. Van Dine

  Vance turned thoughtfully to Scarlett.

  “Just what was said by Doctor Bliss to Mr. Kyle over the phone last night?”

  “I think I’ve told you everything, old man.” Scarlett appeared both puzzled and startled at Vance’s persistent curiosity on this point. “He simply made the appointment for eleven o’clock, saying he’d have the financial report ready at that time.”

  “And what did he say about the new shipment?”

  “Nothing, except that he was desirous of having Mr. Kyle see the items.”

  “And did he mention their whereabouts?”

  “Yes; I recall that he said they had been placed in the end cabinet—the one with the closed curtains.”

  Vance nodded with a satisfaction I did not then understand.

  “That accounts probably for Kyle’s having come early to inspect the—what shall I say?—loot.”

  He faced Hani again with an engaging smile. “And is it not true that you and the others at the conference last night heard this phone call?”

  “Yes—we all heard it.” The Egyptian had become morose; but I noticed that he was studying Vance surreptitiously from the corner of his eye.

  “And—I take it—,” mused Vance, “any one who knew Kyle might have surmised that he would come early to inspect the items in that end cabinet… Eh, Scarlett?”

  Scarlett shifted uneasily and looked at the great figure of the serene Kha-ef-Rê.

  “Well—since you put it that way—yes… Fact is, Vance, Doctor Bliss suggested that Mr. Kyle come early and have a peep at the treasures.”

  These ramifications had begun to irritate Sergeant Heath.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Vance,” he blurted, with ill-concealed annoyance; “but do you happen to be the defense attorney for this Doctor Bliss? If you aren’t working hard to alibi him, I’m the Queen of Sheba.”

  “You’re certainly not Solomon, Sergeant,” returned Vance. “Don’t you care to weigh all the possibilities?”

  “Weigh hell!” Heath was losing his temper. “I want a heart-to-heart talk with this guy who wore that beetle-pin and drew up that report. I know clean-cut evidence when I see it.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a moment,” Vance spoke dulcetly. “But even clean-cut evidence may have various interpretations…”

  Snitkin threw open the door noisily at this point, and Doctor Doremus, the Medical Examiner, tripped jauntily down the stairs. He was a thin, nervous man, with a seamed, prematurely old face which carried a look at once crabbed and jocular.

  “Good-morning, gentlemen,” he greeted us breezily. He shook hands perfunctorily with Markham and Heath, and squaring off, gave Vance an exaggeratedly disgruntled look.

  “Well, well!” he exclaimed, tilting his straw hat at an even more rakish angle. “Wherever there’s a murder I find you, sir.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Lunch time, by George!” His flashing gaze moved about the museum and came to rest on one of the anthropoid mummy cases. “This place don’t look healthy… Where’s the body, Sergeant?”

  Heath had been standing before the prostrate body of Kyle. He now moved aside and pointed to the dead man.

  “That’s him, doc.”

  Doremus came forward and peered indifferently at the corpse.

  “Well, he’s dead,” he pronounced, cocking his eye at Heath.

  “Honest to Gawd?” The Sergeant was good-naturedly sarcastic.

  “That’s the way it strikes me—though since Carrel’s experiments you never can tell… Anyway, I’ll stand by my decision.” He chuckled, and kneeling down, touched one of Kyle’s hands. Then he moved one of the dead man’s legs sidewise. “And he’s been dead for about two hours—not longer, maybe less.”

  Heath took out a large handkerchief and, with great care, lifted the black statue of Sakhmet from Kyle’s head.

  “I’m saving this for finger-prints… Any signs of a struggle, doc?”

  Doremus turned the body over and made a careful inspection of the face, the hands, and the clothes.

  “Don’t see any,” he returned laconically. “Was struck from the rear, I’d say. Fell forward, arms outstretched. Didn’t move after he’d hit the floor.”

  “Any chance, doctor, of his having been dead when the statue hit him?” asked Vance.

  “Nope.” Doremus rose and teetered on his toes impatiently. “Too much blood for that.”

  “Simple case of assault, then?”

  “Looks like it… I’m no wizard, though.” The doctor had become irritable. “The autopsy will settle that point.”

  “Can we have the post-mortem report immediately?” Markham made the request.

  “As soon as the Sergeant gets the body to the mortuary.”

  “It’ll be there by the time you’ve finished lunch, doc,” said Heath. “I ordered the wagon before I left the Bureau.”

  “That being that, I’ll run along.” Again Doremus shook hands with Markham and Heath, and throwing a friendly salutation to Vance, walked briskly out of the room.

  I had noticed that ever since Heath had placed the statue of Sakhmet to one side he had stood staring impatiently at the small pool of blood. As soon as Doremus had departed he knelt down and became doggedly interested in something on the floor. He took out his flash-light, which Vance had returned to him, and focussed it on the edge of the blood-pool at the point where I had noted the outward smear.

  Then, after a moment, he moved a short distance away, and again shot his light on a faint smudge which stained the yellow wood floor. Once more he shifted his position—this time toward the little spiral stairs. A grunt of satisfaction escaped him now, and rising, he walked, in a wide circle, to the stairs themselves. There he again knelt down and ran the beam of his flash-light over the lower steps. On the third step the ray of light suddenly halted, and the Sergeant’s face shot forward in an attitude of intense concentration.

  A grin slowly overspread his broad features, and straightening up, he brought a gaze of triumph to bear on Vance.

  “I’ve got the case tied up in a sack now, sir,” he announced.

  “I take it,” replied Vance, “you’ve found the spoor of the murderer.”

  “I’ll say!” Heath nodded with the deliberate emphasis of finality. “It’s just like I told you…”

  “Don’t be too positive, Sergeant.” Vance’s face had grown sombre. “The obvious explanation is often the wrong one.”

  “Yeah?” Heath turned to Scarlett. “Listen, Mr. Scarlett, I got a question to ask you—and I want a straight answer.” Scarlett bristled, but the Sergeant paid no attention to his resentment. “What kind of shoes does this Doctor Bliss generally wear round the house?”

  Scarlett hesitated, and looked appealingly to Vance.

  “Tell the Sergeant whatever you know,” Vance advised him. “This is no time for reticence. You can trust me. There’s no question of disloyalty now. The truth, d’ye see, is all that matters.”

  Scarlett cleared his throat nervously.

  “Rubber tennis shoes,” he said, in a low voice. “Ever since his first expedition in Egypt he has had weak feet—they troubled him abominably. He got relief by wearing white canvas sneakers with rubber soles.”

  “Sure he did.” Heath walked back toward the body of Kyle. “Step over here a minute, Mr. Vance. I got something to show you.”

  Vance moved forward, and I followed him.

  “Take a look at that foot-print,” the Sergeant continued, pointing toward the smear at the edge of the pool of blood where Kyle’s head had lain. “It don’t show up much till you get close to it…but, once you spot it, you’ll notice that it has marks of a rubber-soled shoe, with crossings like a checker-board on the sole and round spots on the heel.”

  Vance bent over and inspected the foot-print in the blood.

  “Quite right, Sergeant.” He had become very grave and serious.

  “And now look here,” Heath went on, pointing to two other smudges on the floor half-way to the iron stairs.
r />   Vance leaned over the spots, and nodded.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Those marks were probably made by the murderer…”

  “And once more, sir.” Heath went to the stairs and flashed his pocket-light on the third step.

  Vance adjusted his monocle and looked closely. Then he rose and stood still for a moment, his chin resting in the palm of his hand.

  “How about it, Mr. Vance?” the Sergeant demanded. “Is that evidence enough for you?”

  Markham stepped to the foot of the circular stair-way, and placed his hand on Vance’s shoulder.

  “Why this stubbornness, old friend?” he asked in a kindly voice. “It begins to look like a clear case.”

  Vance lifted his eyes.

  “A clear case—yes! But a clear case of what?… It doesn’t make sense. Does a man of Bliss’s mentality brutally murder a man with whom he is known to have had an appointment, and then leave his scarab-pin and a financial report, which no one else could have produced, on the scene of the crime, to involve himself? And, lest that evidence wasn’t enough, is he going to leave bloody foot-prints, of a distinctive and personal design, leading from the body to his study?… Is it reasonable?”

  “It may not be reasonable,” Markham conceded; “but these things are nevertheless facts. And there’s nothing to be done but confront Doctor Bliss with them.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Vance’s eyes again drifted toward the little metal door at the head of the spiral stairs. “Yes…the time has come to put Bliss on the carpet… But I don’t like it, Markham. There’s something awry… Maybe the doctor himself can enlighten us. Let me fetch him—I’ve known him for several years.”

  Vance turned and ascended the stairs, taking care not to step on the telltale foot-print the Sergeant had discovered.

  Footnotes

  *The ancient Egyptian name of Heracleopolis.

  *This unusual name, I learned later, was the result of his father’s interest in Egyptian mythology while in Maspero’s service.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Meryt-Amen

  (Friday, July 13; 12.45 p.m.)

  VANCE KNOCKED ON the narrow door and reached into his pocket for his cigarette-case. We on the floor below watched the metal panel in silent expectancy. A feeling of dread, for some unknown reason, assailed me, and my muscles went tense. To this day I cannot explain the cause of my fear; but at that moment a chill came over my heart. All the evidence that had come to light pointed unmistakably toward the great Egyptologist in the little room beyond.

  Vance alone seemed unconcerned. He casually lit his cigarette, and when he had replaced the lighter in his pocket, he knocked again at the door—this time more loudly. Still no answer.

  “Very curious,” I heard him murmur.

  Then he raised his arm and pounded on the metal with a force that sent reverberating echoes through the great room of the museum.

  At last, after several moments of ominous silence, there was a sound of a knob turning, and the heavy door swung slowly inward.

  In the opening stood the tall, slender figure of a man in his middle forties. He wore a peacock-blue dressing-gown of self-figured silk, which reached to his ankles, and his sparse yellow hair was tousled as if he had just risen from bed. Indeed, his entire appearance was that of one who had suddenly been roused from a deep sleep. His eyes were hazy, and their lids drooped; and he clung to the inside knob of the door for support. He actually swayed a little as he peered dully at Vance.

  Withal, he was a striking figure. His face was long and thin, rugged and deeply tanned. His forehead was high and narrow—a scholar’s brow; but his nose, which was curved like an eagle’s beak, was his most prominent characteristic. His mouth was straight, and surmounted a chin that was so square as to be cubic. His cheeks were sunken, and I got the distinct impression of a man who was physically ill but who overrode the ravages of disease by sheer nervous vitality.

  For a moment he stared at Vance uncomprehendingly. Then—like a person coming out of an anæsthetic—he blinked several times and took a deep inspiration.

  “Ah!” His voice was thick and a trifle rasping. “Mr. Vance!… A long time since I’ve seen you…” His eyes drifted about the museum and came to rest on the little group at the foot of the stairs. “I don’t quite understand…” He passed his hand slowly over the top of his head, and ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. “My head feels so heavy…please forgive me… I—I must have been asleep… Who are these gentlemen below?… I recognize Scarlett and Hani… It’s been devilishly hot in my study.”

  “A serious accident has happened, Doctor Bliss,” Vance informed him, in a low voice. “Would you mind stepping down into the museum?…We need your help.”

  “An accident!” Bliss drew himself up, and for the first time since he appeared at the door his eyes opened wide. “A serious accident?… What has happened? Not burglars, I hope. I’ve always been worried—”

  “No, there have been no burglars, doctor.” Vance steadied him as he walked nervously down the circular stairs.

  When he reached the floor of the museum every eye in the room, I felt sure, was focussed on his feet. Certainly my own initial instinct was to inspect them; and I noticed that Heath, who stood beside me, had concentrated his gaze on the doctor’s foot-covering. But if any of us expected to find Bliss shod in rubber-soled tennis shoes, he was disappointed. The man wore a pair of soft vici-kid bedroom slippers, dyed blue to match his dressing-gown and adorned with orange trimmings.

  I did note, however, that his gray-silk pyjamas, which showed through the deep V-opening of his gown, had a broad, turned-over collar in which a mauve four-in-hand had been loosely knotted.

  His eyes swept the little group before him and returned to Vance.

  “You say there have been no burglars?” His voice was still vague and thick. “What, then, was the accident, Mr. Vance?”

  “An accident far more serious than burglars, doctor,” replied Vance, who had not released his hold on the other’s arm. “Mr. Kyle is dead.”

  “Kyle dead!” Bliss’s mouth sagged open, and a look of hopeless amazement came into his eyes. “But—but…I talked to him last night. He was to come here this morning… regarding the new expedition… Dead? All my work—my life’s work—ended!” He slumped into one of the small folding wooden chairs of which there were perhaps a score scattered about the museum. A look of tragic resignation settled on his face. “This is terrible news.”

  “I’m very sorry, doctor,” Vance murmured consolingly. “I fully understand your great disappointment…”

  Bliss rose to his feet. His lethargy had fallen from him, and his features became hard and resolute. He looked squarely at Vance.

  “Dead?” His voice was menacing. “How did he die?”

  “He was murdered.” Vance pointed to the body of Kyle before which Markham and Heath and I were standing.

  Bliss stepped toward Kyle’s prostrate figure. For a full minute he stood staring down at the body; then his gaze shifted to the small statue of Sakhmet, and a moment later he lifted his eyes to the lupine features of Anûbis.

  Suddenly he swung round and faced Hani. The Egyptian took a backward step, as though he feared violence from the doctor.

  “What do you know about this?—you jackal!” Bliss threw the question at him venomously, a passionate hate in his voice. “You’ve spied on me for years. You’ve taken my money and pocketed bribes from your stupid and grasping government. You’ve poisoned my wife against me. You’ve stood in the way of all I’ve endeavored to accomplish. You tried to murder the old native who showed me the site of the two obelisks in front of Intef’s pyramid.* You’ve hampered me at every turn. And because my wife believed in you and loved you, I’ve kept you. And now, when I’ve found the site of Intef’s tomb and actually entered the antechamber and am about to give the fruits of my researches to the world, the one man who could make possible the success of my life’s work is found murdered.” Bliss’s eye
s were like burning coals. “What do you know about it, Anûpu Hani? Speak—you contemptible dog of a fellah!”

  Hani had retreated several paces. Bliss’s vitriolic tirade had pitifully cowed him. But he did not grovel: he had become grim and morose, and there was a snarl in his voice when he answered.

  “I know nothing of the murder. It was the vengeance of Sakhmet! She killed the one who would have paid for the desecration of Intef’s tomb…”

  “Sakhmet!” Bliss’s scorn was devastating. “A piece of stone belonging to a hybrid mythology! You’re not among illiterate witch-doctors now—you’re confronted with civilized human beings who want the truth… Who killed Kyle?”

  “If it wasn’t Sakhmet, I don’t know, Your Presence.” Despite the Egyptian’s subservient attitude there was an underlying contempt in his manner and in the intonation of his voice. “I have been in my room all the morning… You, hadretak,” he added, with a sneer, “were very close to your rich patron when he departed this world for the Land of Shades.”

  Two red patches of anger shone through the tan of Bliss’s cheeks. His eyes blazed abnormally, and his hands plucked spasmodically at the folds of his dressing-gown. I feared he would fly at the throat of the Egyptian.

  Vance, too, had some such apprehension, for he moved to the doctor’s side and touched him reassuringly on the arm.

  “I understand perfectly how you feel, sir,” he said in a soothing voice. “But temper won’t help us get at the root of this matter.”

  Bliss sank back into his chair without a word, and Scarlett, who had been looking on at the scene with troubled amazement, stepped quickly up to Vance.

  “There’s something radically wrong here,” he said. “The doctor isn’t himself.”

  “So I observe.” Vance spoke dryly, but there was a puzzled frown on his face. He scrutinized Bliss for a moment. “I say, doctor; what time did you fall asleep in your study this morning?”

  Bliss looked up lethargically. His wrath seemed to have left him, and his eyes were again heavy.